Are You Porter?

Cinque Terre consists of five little villages that cling to a mountain side that kisses the sea.
We arrived in Cinque Terre at night with a light rain falling. The apartment we rented was located in the village of Riomaggiore. (I chose this village because I liked the way the word was spelled. (true story. ha!)

I had correspondence with the apartment owner through email only and the directions we were given were 'follow the "main street" to Columbo St. and ask for Simone at the store between the bar and the pharmacy'.   Of course directions are never quite as simple as they sound. 

My sister and I left the train station and immediately feel lost (as is very common for us) so we ask the first person we see if she knows the address we are looking for.  She did not, but tells us which direction to head to. We are literally the only people out on the streets and we walk through this long dark tunnel pulling our suitcases. Just outside the tunnel we find Columbo St and look for a bar and a pharmacy of which we see neither at first. It's raining, we don't have our umbrella out (did I mention I lost my umbrella before we even made it to airport security!) This is a quiet street with a few locals walking home. One restaurant was open and a tiny grocery store had lights on. We did not see the bar or the pharmacy where we were to introduce ourselves to Simone. The dark stone street was quiet when we heard a man say, "Are you Porter?" (in a thick Italian accent.) We answer, "yes" and he waves and says, "Come with me."

So, we follow this totally random stranger and he leads us up a steep hill and numerous stairs until we reach a metal gate. "Here is the hard part." he says. I can only image what that means because I'm gasping for breath from the walk up the side of this mountain town in the rain. Also, I'm wearing a 'boot' because I'd broken a bone in my foot several weeks prior. Ugh!

He opens the metal gate and there are 67 steep stone steps up to our apartment. My sister is laughing and tells me that maybe next time I should ask about the number of steps involved when renting our next apartment. :)

When we reach the apartment my glasses are fogging over because I'm so hot and out of breath. Does that sound like fun? Not at that moment no, but it was in hindsight. The apartment was great and had an amazing top terrace that overlooked part of the village and the Ligurian Sea.

It was one of those things that makes you stare and doesn't seem quite real. A true piece of beautiful nature.
Neither of us had heard of the Ligurian Sea so we were fascinated by it. Both of us wanted to put our hands in the water so we could say we'd touched the Ligurian Sea.